LSU Kinesiology Students Successfully Complete Marathon

05/30/2012 03:39 PM

BATON ROUGE – Students enrolled in the LSU College of Education’s Physiology Endurance Training kinesiology class successfully completed the Kentucky Derby Marathon in Louisville, Ky., on April 28, as the crowning event of the class. The course is a three-credit academic course designed to examine the physiological aspects of endurance training.Students in the course learn about the effect of endurance training on their bodies as they experience it. Most of the course is conducted in the academic setting with structured lectures and learning activities. A significant component of training occurs outside of class as well.

Over the 15 weeks of the course, students train for a marathon, largely in their own time. They are required to complete one long supervised weekend run per month and a run or structured activity every week to ensure success in the event. Additionally, students keep diet, nutrition and physical activity logs so that they can observe how their diet and activity patterns change over the course of the training program.

“This class takes both beginner runners and non-runners and safely trains them to run a marathon distance while simultaneously educating them about the various aspects of endurance training,” said recent LSU graduate Chase Batty. “I took the class twice, and I would highly recommend it to other students.”

“This is the fourth time that I have taught this class,” said LSU Kinesiology Professor Laura Stewart. “So far, more than 80 LSU students have completed the marathon distance as a part of this course.”

The course, KIN 4526, is typically offered every other spring; the next offering will be spring 2014.

Effective July 1, LSU’s new College of Human Sciences and Education will consist of six schools: the School of Education, the School of Human Resource Education and Workforce Development, the School of Kinesiology, the School of Library and Information Science, the School of Social Work and the University Laboratory School.For more information about the LSU College of Education, visit www.lsu.edu/coe.